Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 27, 1995 TAG: 9504270094
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PORT ROYAL LENGTH: Medium
Next month, a judge in Baltimore will hear arguments from amateur historian Nathaniel Orlowek that the remains in John Wilkes Booth's tomb should be exhumed and tested to determine whether Booth really is buried there. The hearing is set for May 18.
Tests would focus on skeletal injuries, including the broken leg Booth suffered when he leaped onto the stage of Ford's Theater after shooting President Lincoln on April 14, 1865.
Twelve days later, Booth was cornered in a burning barn near Port Royal, 80 miles from Washington, and shot to death.
Two researchers and 22 of Booth's relatives filed a court petition last fall seeking to exhume the remains from the family plot in Baltimore's Greenmount Cemetery.
``People have always suspected we weren't really told the truth about this case, and I think they're correct,'' Orlowek said.
Orlowek theorizes Booth lived until 1903, when, under the alias David E. George, he committed suicide in Enid, Oklahoma Territory. George claimed he was Booth.
Briefs opposing the exhumation request were filed by historian James O. Hall and others.
``Absolute total nonsense,'' Hall said. ``If ever I heard anything more ridiculous, I don't know what it would be.''
Independent forensic experts from the Smithsonian Institution and elsewhere have volunteered to do tests on the remains in Booth's grave.
Forensic tests could prove only that the remains are not those of Booth rather than positively identify the corpse as his.
More sophisticated tests, such as DNA analysis, cannot be done because there are no appropriate living descendants with whom to make a genetic comparison, Hall said.
by CNB